CLASSICAL20.COM

The New Simplicity dominates all of Hans Abrahamsen’s early period, which lasts up to and includes the orchestral piece Stratifications from 1973/75. In its structure and idea the first part of the work can be compared to a series of short film shots each lasting a minute. Each shot – there are four in all – has so to speak been filmed in a new place, but each time with a static camera that simply registers what is happening in front of the lens for the brief moment the shot lasts, without any movement of the camera or any focus on a particular actor or event. The stratified nature of the music to which the title refers thus applies both to the vertical (the film shots) and to the horizontal axis, since the composer has chosen to let several different independent musical strata, clearly distinguishable for the listener – different actions, so to speak – pass the camera lens at the same time. [Source]

[Dedicated to Martin von Haller Grønbæk]